


Pines on the Run

by detectivejigsaw



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: AU of the AU, Depression, Gen, Heroic BSOD, How's that for meta, References to Depression, References to force-feeding, Stan and Ford go to prison, Starvation, Unashamedly fluffy in places, adoption au, briefly, written for marehami and Keleficent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22790482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detectivejigsaw/pseuds/detectivejigsaw
Summary: Based on the story "Forever and Always," from Keleficent and marehami's Adoption AU (duh).  Long story slightly shorter, Janice goes through with her threat of getting the grunkles arrested for some of their less than legal activities, and takes the kids away to live with her.  Unfortunately for her, Dipper and Mabel turn out to be less than cooperative about the whole situation, and eventually take matters into their own hands.
Relationships: Dipper Pines & Ford Pines, Dipper Pines & Stan Pines, Ford Pines & Mabel Pines, Ford Pines & Stan Pines, Jesus "Soos" Alzamirano Ramirez & Stan Pines, Mabel Pines & Stan Pines, Mabel Pines & Waddles, Wendy Corduroy & Dipper Pines, Wendy Corduroy & Mabel Pines
Comments: 140
Kudos: 86





	1. An unwanted guest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Keleficent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keleficent/gifts), [marehami](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marehami/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Forever and Always](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12860907) by [Keleficent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keleficent/pseuds/Keleficent), [marehami](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marehami/pseuds/marehami). 



The cell door opened with an ominous-sounding _creeeeak_ ; the kind that in most stories would be the prelude to something terrible about to happen, usually along the lines of either the revelation that the room housed a dangerous, hulking brute of some kind, or that the person entering the room was about to inflict some kind of horrible abuse on the helpless inhabitant.

In this situation, however, neither of these scenarios was the case.

For one thing, the inmate lying on the cot inside the cell was in no condition to hulk over anyone. Under normal conditions, of course, he could be quite an imposing figure when he chose; his arms were big and strong when he was in full health, and despite his wrinkles and gray hair and layer of fat around his gut and all the other side-effects that came with being no longer in his prime, he had quite a lot of physical prowess for his age.

After over a month of being in this cold, cheerless place, however, he had lost a lot of both muscle and fat-mostly because he had barely eaten in the first week he’d come here, and after a while had stopped eating altogether. There was an IV stuck in one of his hands to give him his required nutrients, and both his wrists had been handcuffed to the bed so he would stop ripping his IV out and throwing it at the wall. He hadn’t shaved in ages, and his eyes were frighteningly vacant.

At about the same time as he’d stopped eating, he had also stopped talking, much to the frustration of the guards, the warden, and the psychologist they’d brought in to try to get through to him.

If it weren’t for the way his eyes moved around, and his chest rose and fell, some people might think they were looking down at a freshly made corpse.

For another thing, the man entering the room had no intention of doing any kind of harm to the one in the bunk. And not just because it was his brother lying there.

Ford, who wasn’t looking much better than Stan except for being clean-shaven and somewhat better fed, came and crouched down at his brother’s side.

Stan’s eyes glanced at his...but he didn’t make a sound. He just blinked, and looked back up at the ceiling.

“Hey, Stanley,” Ford said. He grimaced when he looked at the handcuffs, disgusted at the fact that his brother was being chained down like someone in a mental hospital.

Stan said nothing.

“...It’s been a while since I saw you out and about. I was beginning to wonder if you’d escaped without me.” Ford tried to smile.

Another quiet blink. He decided to cut to the chase.

“The guards want me to persuade you to start eating again.”

This finally got more of a reaction: Stan’s eyebrows drew together in an unimpressed glare.

Ford sighed. “Stan, please...I know you’re not happy here. I’m not either. And I miss the kids too.”

It was like a punch in the gut for both of them, being reminded of the kids; Stan’s breath hitched, and his jaw clenched. Ford knew the feeling.

Gently he reached out a hand, cupped his brother’s shoulder. “You know they wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself.”

Stan closed his eyes; Ford could see the moisture building up in them. He gave a small, stubborn shake of his head.

“They’re going to start force-feeding you if you don’t eat on your own, knucklehead!” Ford pleaded, hating how pathetic he sounded. “And I don’t want that to happen to you!”

Then he remembered: this was the wrong approach to take when talking to his brother (i.e. trying to persuade him to care about his own well-being). He swallowed, and said hoarsely, “I can’t lose you too. Not again. Please, Stanley-for me.”

Maybe that was playing dirty a little, but that didn’t make it any less true. And it had Stan turning his head back towards him, and opening his dampened eyes a little, some of his resolve visibly crumbling. Ford smiled at him hopefully, squeezing his shoulder again.

And then behind them a voice said, “You got a visitor, Pines. Both of you.”

* * *

Stan was too weak to walk on his own; a guard was conscripted to push him in a wheelchair to the visiting area, while Ford walked behind, glad that at least neither of them was being forcibly handcuffed this time. And then he almost wished he was handcuffed, because standing on the other side of the glass was the absolute last person he wanted to see right now, and the temptation to smash through it and _end_ her was almost completely overwhelming.

Janice raised one perfectly-plucked eyebrow when she saw that Stan was in a wheelchair. “Dare I ask what happened?” she asked when Ford picked up the connecting phone and leaned both their ears against it. “Did he get his legs broken by picking a fight with someone bigger than him or something?”

Ford growled. “We have nothing to say to you.” He turned, ready to call the guard to take them away from this “witch with a capital B.” Before he could, though, Janice spoke again.

“The children have run away.”

Ford lurched forward, practically pressing his face right against the glass. “They what?!”

Sitting next to him, Stan leaned in too, eyes wide with horror.

Janice bit her lip-and for a moment she actually looked like a decent human being concerned about the welfare of her niece and nephew, instead of their outward appearance and interests. “I-I came home from the salon one morning and they were gone. They've been missing for three weeks-”

“ _And you didn’t tell us until now_?!”

Surprisingly, it was not Ford who demanded this. Stan seemed to have regained his voice at last; it was far raspier than normal, but still recognizably his. And right now, it was quivering with wrath.

Janice sat back, a hint of genuine fright in her eyes. “I thought the people I hired would be enough to find them! But they’ve proven to be more elusive than I thought. I had them check your shack-” the way her mouth puckered indicated that she wasn’t referring to their home in the titular sense- “and they scoured the woods around Gravity Falls, and I even advertised a reward-but there has been no sign of them. So...as painful as it will be for all of us for me to ask it, I need your help.”

Stan laughed, still sounding raspy and painful.

“Good one, Janice. Good one. Like you think we’d _ever_ help you.”

“I’m not asking for myself!” she snapped. “I’m worried about the children, and whether they’re lying dead in the gutter somewhere!”

That shut Stan up. Which, given his past history on the streets, was more than a little unsurprising.

Janice sighed, and leaned in.

“I can pull some strings here, and get them to let you go free, if in return you help me find Mason-”

“His name is _Dipper_ ,” Stan growled; Janice ignored him.

“-and Mabel, since clearly you know them a lot better than I do.”

“At least you have the decency to admit that,” Ford couldn’t help sniping at her.

Janice glared at him; he glared levelly back. After the horrors he’d endured across the multiverse, he was more than happy to stare down a domineering old battleaxe who wore too much makeup and tried to appear ten or twenty years younger than she actually was.

To his infinite smugness, Janice looked away first.

“If you find them, maybe I can even arrange your being let go altogether. You won’t have to finish the rest of your sentences.”

Stan scoffed. “I don’t think even you’ve got that much money, lady.”

“It’s more than just _money_ , Stanley,” was the withering reply. “I also have _influence_.”

The two men pulled back a bit and looked at each other; an unspoken conversation passed between them for a minute. At last, they nodded and looked back at her.

“Okay,” Ford said. “We’ll find them. But only because we want them to be safe. And I make no promises for making them go back to you when we find them.”

Stan nodded. “Same.”

There was a long moment in which the two men and the woman glared stubbornly at each other...before Janice sighed.

“Very well. I’ll get started on bailing you out.” And she hung up the phone that connected between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stan's BSOD might seem a little out of character, except that I remember what he was like after Ford went through the portal, and this is basically a repeat of that for him, except worse.  
> Make sense?


	2. Three weeks earlier

Dipper wasn’t sure what exactly the last straw had been.

I mean, technically he did: the last straw was when he and Mabel had been forced to watch the two old men they’d come to love be carted off to a maximum-security prison, before they were dragged away to the house of their Great Aunt Janice (and despite her thoughts on the matter, no, the pool did not help at all). But it was far more than that: it was like everything-being uprooted from the new life they’d just barely settled themselves into, watching their grunkles be locked up for the rest of their natural lives, coming into the custody of a horrible, controlling woman like Janice, and not even being allowed to write or call or visit Stan and Ford because she didn’t want them being under their “bad influence” anymore-was like one giant last straw that made him decide after a little over a week in her care that enough was enough.

The plan Dipper came up with was utterly dangerous and insane; he could not have cared less.

One Monday, while Janice was in the bathroom absorbed with her morning routine, he managed to rifle through her purse and pull out enough money for two bus tickets to Oregon, plus a little extra just in case. He shoved the cash into the pocket of his jeans, sneaked out before she could catch him, and then headed for Mabel’s room, down the hall from his.

His sister was sitting on her bed, absorbed in her knitting- it was pretty much her only hobby that Janice had not tried to forbid her from doing, provided she stopped wearing those “silly sweaters” all the time. So instead she was coping by making an enormous quilt of many colors that by now covered half the floor when it was unfolded; Dipper was reminded for the umpteenth time how utterly impressive his sister’s knitting abilities were when he looked at it.

To the untrained eye, she probably looked perfectly happy; singing a little nonsense song to herself as she worked, needles clicking rapidly together and feet swinging back and forth. However, her eyes had dark circles under them indicating that for once, Dipper was not the only twin staying up until odd hours of the night. Her braces-filled smile was fixed in place, in an expression best described as “Stepford.” Add to that the fact that she had barely stopped working on this blanket since they first arrived, and that the work seemed to be the only thing grounding her...and you could see that all was not well here.

Mabel looked up when he came in, closing the door behind him, and smiled more genuinely. “Look, Dipper, I’m gonna make this thing so big I can cover my entire room in it! It’ll be like Mabel Land-” her voice shook a little at the name of that place, but she quickly recovered- “except not evil!”

Dipper managed a smile back. Then he climbed onto the bed and sat down next to her. “I think I have a better idea, actually.”

Mabel tilted her head. “...You think I should make it big enough to cover the entire house? Janice probably wouldn’t allow it,but we could wait until she’s out-”

“Better.” He pulled out the money. “How about we go home?”

The needles dropped from Mabel’s fingers. “Dipper, you didn’t!”

He nodded, and grinned in a way that wouldn’t have looked too out of place on Stan.

Mabel started to smile in delight...but the look quickly dropped. “Janice’ll know where we’ve gone-she’ll just come and take us away again. And it won’t be the same without…” Her eyes started to fill up, but she stubbornly blinked away the tears.

“Not if she can’t  _ find _ us,” Dipper retorted.

Mabel gave him another confused look.

“Trust me, I have a plan. And yeah, it won’t be the same without Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford...but maybe they’ll break out and come find us. Or, heck-” he shrugged- “we can just break them out. We’ve done harder stuff.”

Mabel giggled, and bounced to her feet, looking far more energetic than she’d been in days. “I’mgonnastartfiguringoutwhattobring!” And she dove into her pile of stuff.

* * *

Of course, they weren’t able to leave right then and there, as much as they wanted to. They had to gather up some supplies first-and then force themselves to pick and choose the bare bones of what things they actually needed, rather than  _ wanted _ to bring, and then narrow it down even more until they were able to fill up just two backpacks and a suitcase. Fortunately, the process was helped by the fact that there were not many things in this house that they considered theirs-all the things they really loved were still in the Shack, as far as they knew.

It was still early January, so they made sure to pack plenty of warm clothes-especially the few sweaters Mabel had sneakily put together, and winter boots, because Gravity Falls had lots of snow this time of year. They also got food, water, some yarn that Mabel promised she would make into a blanket big enough for both of them, a lighter, Dipper’s journal, and some toiletries, before finally they felt ready.

One factor in their favor was that Janice had not enrolled them in school yet, because she was still trying to pick one that was most “appropriate.” So they were able to sneak out on Wednesday afternoon, while they were alone in the house, and make their way to a bus stop. Mabel suggested wearing fake beards and mustaches, but Dipper pointed out that the people around here weren’t as dumb as the people in Gravity Falls, so instead they made do with Mabel wearing her hair tucked up under her hat, and not getting on the bus at the same time (neither of them able to relax until they were side by side again).

They left the expensive cell phones Janice had bought them on their pillows. Mabel nearly left an unsent text message reading, “Try and catch us, suckers!” on hers, but Dipper persuaded her that was a bad idea. After debating the pros and cons of leaving a note, finally they just wrote “Goodbye, Graunty Janice” on a slip of paper and left it next to Dipper’s phone.

And then they were free.

The whole ride was filled with tension for both of them; Dipper was sure that every passenger who looked in their direction was a plainclothes cop, or a creep, or someone who’d been hired by Janice to spy on them if they ever left the house without her. Since Mabel was knitting again, he had to make due with burying his fingers in her coat to keep himself grounded. He was unable to make himself relax until the bus finally pulled to a stop on the outskirts of town.

Hand in hand the twins wandered down the freezing road until they found a payphone, and called the one person who they thought they could trust right now.

“If this is a telemarketer, you can forget it-I’m sixteen, and I’m not interested,” Wendy’s bored voice said into the receiver.

“Wendy! It’s us!”

“Hi, Wendy!” Mabel called excitedly.

“What the-guys?!” Wendy’s voice actually went up an octave for a moment. “Hey! I’ve missed hearing your voices!” Her voice became a hint more somber. “Is-is everything okay?”

“...It’s a little better now.” Dipper unconsciously rubbed the back of his neck. “Because, um…”

“Because we ran away and now we’re back in town!” Mabel chirped.

“You WHAT?!”

“We couldn’t stay there anymore!” Dipper said hurriedly. “Nothing about that place felt right, and we just-Wendy, please. We need your help.”

There was a silence, in which he could envision her weighing how grounded she would be if she got busted for this versus how much her friends’ safety and happiness meant to her. At last, though, she asked, “What do you need?”

“We’re gonna hide in the bunker until we can figure out the next part of our plan.” For now, Dipper refrained from telling her that it involved helping their grunkles escape from prison. “Could you be, you know, our link to the outside world? All we really need is some food, and to find out if there’s anything in the news about us-”

“And Waddles!” Mabel cut in. “I need you to bring me Waddles!”

Dipper gave her a bit of a look, but sighed and nodded; it  _ would _ be better for his twin’s mental health to have her pet with her.

“If you don’t want to, that’s fine. We can-”

Wendy made a scoffing noise. “If you guys think I’m gonna let you fend for yourselves in the woods, you’re crazy. Of course I’m gonna do it. See you in a few.”

The twins grinned, and high-fived after hanging up.

Things were definitely not perfect right now, but they weren’t totally hopeless either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, good old "cool under pressure" Wendy is a part of things.


	3. Healing and searching

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Mardi Gras, everybody.

Much to Stan’s annoyance, even when they were released a day or so later he was still too weak to walk, for all the stubborn energy he was able to pour into making himself at least stand up on his own (it lasted about thirty seconds, and by the time Ford forced him to sit back down in the wheelchair his legs were trembling like crazy).

“I can mix up something that will help you get your strength back,” he promised as he pushed Stan out the door, “I just need to get my hands on some cayenne pepper and a few packets of sugar, among other things…”

Janice pursed her lips as she led them to her car and unlocked it. “Funny, I thought someone with as much experience with prison life as you already have would have adjusted to it better, Stan-eeek!”

The frightened squeak came from being unexpectedly slammed against the side of the car. She was about to angrily protest, when Ford spoke over her, in a frigid tone.

“Do not start with us, Janice.” After giving her a moment to let the message sink in, he released her and returned to Stan’s side, helping him stand and shuffle to the car.

Stan was impressed; he hadn’t even had time to be offended by the catty remark.

Janice stood frozen for a moment, before sniffing and stalking to the driver’s side. Stan could tell she was frightened, but trying to play it off like she wasn’t; it was a technique he was all too familiar with.

* * *

Reluctantly, she drove the two men to her house, in the middle of a wealthy suburb, and allowed Ford to ransack her kitchen for the ingredients he needed to get Stan walking again. Stan reluctantly lay on her fancy leather sofa in the living room and waited for it to be ready.

He had to admit, it felt good to be wearing regular clothes again, instead of the all-too-familiar orange jumpsuit.

It felt good to be surrounded by colors, and breathing free air (prison air always seemed to have something wrong with it, even if you were out in the yard).

Best of all, it felt good to have a purpose again.

For the last month Stan had been...it was similar to his mental state after Ford was first lost to the portal. Like his mind was trapped in a fog of sadness that he couldn’t work up the energy to fight his way out of, because what was the point? In some ways it was even worse than last time, because then he’d had a goal he could work towards, he’d had at least a sliver of hope that he could get that portal fixed and get his brother back, even if it took him the rest of his life.

Locked up in prison, however, with it made clear to him that he would never see the outside world or Dipper and Mabel again...what hope was there?

But now Stan’s kids (he didn’t care what Janice said, he would  _ never _ think of them as hers) were lost somewhere, and thinking about what could be happening to them based on personal experience was enough to start clearing the fog.

He’d fallen into a light doze by the time Ford shook his shoulder.

“Come on,” he said, pulling Stan into a sitting position, “Janice doesn’t allow food in the living room.”

Stan rolled his eyes and allowed his brother to help him shuffle into the kitchen. “Why am I not surprised?”

He looked around for the persnickety woman, but it appeared she’d finally left them alone.

“Surprised she’s not keeping an eye on us ta make sure we don’t loot the place,” he muttered.

“She knows we don’t want to risk going back to prison,” Ford said, settling him into a chair which probably cost more than the entire Mystery Shack. Then he set a glass filled with a still-bubbly, red liquid on the table in front of him.

Stan examined it critically. “This looks worse than Mabel Juice.”

“It’ll help you regain your strength more quickly than normal. It’s a specialty from this one desert dimension where the inhabitants are forced to go for long periods of time without eating between oases. Of course, those people are usually not intentionally starving themselves-” was that a hint of reproach in Ford’s voice?- “but the principle is the same.”

Stan shrugged, and managed (with a hand that was only slightly shaking) to lift the glass and touch the tip of his tongue to the liquid.

“You have to drink the whole thing, Stanley,” Ford admonished.

Stan nodded reluctantly, reminding himself this was for the kids, and gulped it down.

_ I wonder if this is what Frankenstein’s monster felt like when he got all that lightning shot through him, _ Stan thought after the sparks stopped exploding in his brain. He was surprised not to feel smoke pouring out of his ears. His tongue felt like all the taste buds had been fried off, and all the colors in the room had turned a few shades brighter for a second.

However, he did suddenly feel a lot stronger; he managed to push back his chair and pull himself to his feet, on legs that only trembled a little bit.

Ford sighed with relief. “Good. That should bring your blood sugar levels back to normal over the course of the next few days, and help you be well enough to digest solid foods. And until then, I also made these for you!”

He pulled two new somethings from behind his back.

Ford had gone a full month without having access to mechanical devices or any kind of tools or equipment (the wardens had somewhat rightfully suspected that he would use them to try to escape), and all his suppressed creative genius had been driving him mad. Now that he was free, he’d used it to put together a pair of robotic leg brace thingies.

“Fiddleford came up with the original design,” Ford said as Stan put them on, “but I made a few adjustments so they would better fit you.” He (not so) subtly swept the remains of Janice’s blender and coffee maker and a few other appliances into the trash.

They clamped around his legs from the knees down, and even fitted over his shoes, making him look a little like a cyborg; Stan found that they were surprisingly comfortable, and that his legs were no longer shaking.

“Neat.” Stan lifted one leg and, out of interest, kicked at one of the walls. The bottom of the brace punched straight through the paneling like tissue paper.

Ford looked sheepish. “...I might have overdone it a little.”

As he extricated his foot, Stan shrugged. “At least it ain’t our house.”

At that moment Janice stormed into the kitchen; quickly Stan moved until he was blocking her view of the hole.

“What was that noise?!” she demanded, looking around.

“Just testin’ out these new leg braces Sixer made,” Stan easily lied. “Sometimes the creaking noises they make are kinda funny.”

Janice gave both of them a suspicious glare, but at last shrugged.

“I have everything I’ll need for the trip; we should leave now.”

“Right.” Ford walked with her to the door, giving Stan a chance to pull a nearby chair over until it covered the hole, and then hurry after them.

The drive to Gravity Falls was...tense, to say the least.

After about five minutes of silence Janice flipped on the radio to some unbelievably boring classical music. The two men, meanwhile, sat in the back, lost in their worries about their kids.

It was so cold outside; they both knew how snowy their town got in the winter time. Stan hoped the kids had at least had the sense to hide out in someone’s nice warm house, instead of staying in the secret basement or, Moses forbid, in the woods. Because as clever and resourceful as they might be, they were still just two kids who were in  _ way _ over their heads, and they were still very susceptible to frostbite and hypothermia and wild animals and-

A warm hand unexpectedly wrapped around his, startling him out of his thoughts; Stan glanced over at Ford, who just threaded his fingers through his and squeezed. It felt a little weird to be doing this, since they weren’t five anymore, but Stan didn’t complain at the contact. He just squeezed back, and kept his hold on his brother’s hand for the rest of the trip.

* * *

The house looked like it had been lonely without them. Everything about it seemed to be sagging sadly, all of the windows dark and empty-looking, and the whole ensemble standing out gloomy and gray against the white of the snow. Stan was still unbelievably happy to see it.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to join you on your search.” Janice followed them primly up the steps, holding an umbrella over her head to keep off the snow.

_ Translation: I don’t trust you to look for the kids on your own, because you might try to abscond-she’s exactly the type to use a word like that-with them to Peru or something. _

_ Well, she’s not exactly wrong… _

Stan dragged his key out of his pocket (they’d been among his personal effects that were returned upon his release from prison) and unlocked the front door.

“My investigators already searched the house,” Janice said, “They’re not here.”

“There’s a spot where you haven’t looked,” he retorted, stepping inside with Ford at his heels.

Janice’s eyebrow rose up into her hairline when Ford punched in the combination on the vending machine (not letting her see what it was, of course) that opened the secret passageway to the basement. She moved to follow them when they stepped inside, but Stan glared at her until she stopped in her tracks, and pulled it closed after them.

They checked all three levels. Much to his disappointment, the kids weren’t here.

“Guess this means we’ll haveta ask around,” he said when they returned upstairs.

* * *

They decided to split up; Stan would ask around town, and Ford would search the woods. Janice, unfortunately, insisted on following Stan, seeming to view him as the least trustworthy of the two. She wasn’t exactly wrong, but it was still annoying to feel her watching him from the sidewalk as he knocked on the Ramirez’s door.

When Soos answered and saw Stan, he promptly burst into noisy, ugly tears and pulled him into a big, smothering hug.

And even though he was worried sick about his kids and it felt like he was being attacked by a sumo wrestler and there really wasn’t time for this, Stan lifted his arms and squeezed his old handyman’s ribs for a full minute, before pulling back and cutting to the chase: “Are the kids here?”

Soos blinked and sniffled, rubbing his eyes. “I-I thought they were with their Graunty Janice now, M-Mr. Pines. And that you were in-” He got too choked up to say it.

“They were. But they ran away three weeks ago. And we got let out cuz Janice finally realized we know them better than she does.”

Soos’s eyes widened, and he let out a horrified sound that seemed genuine enough. And Stan would have been more suspicious, except this was  _ Soos _ he was talking to, the guy who had about as much concept of guile as he did of subtlety (i.e. pretty much zilch).

All the same, he had to be sure.

“Has anyone mentioned seein’ them? Do you know where they are?” He gave Soos a look that he would forever deny was pleading, intently watching his face. “You can tell me if ya do. I just wanna make sure they’re safe.”

The big man’s lip trembled. “No, I h-haven’t seen them. And I’m pretty sure nobody else knows where they are either. Oh man, dude, what if they got caught by a yeti or something?!”

He looked out at the forest, eyes becoming increasingly worried. “Can I help you and Other Mr. Pines look for them?”

Stan’s knee-jerk response was to retort that he and Ford could do it on their own (albeit with Janice breathing down their necks the whole time)...but instead he found himself saying with a shrug, “More the merrier.”

“Thank you Mr. Pines you won’t be sorry!” Seconds later the handyman had disappeared into the house and come back shrugging on a thick winter coat, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll be back later Abuelita, I gotta help save Dipper and Mabel from freezing to death!”

“ _ Que pasa _ ?!” his grandmother called, not sure she’d heard that right.

...But by then they were already halfway down the street, with Janice racing to keep up.


	4. Two weeks earlier

“...Maybe we could let the shapeshifter out,” Mabel suggested, giving the cryotank a critical stare (even though the way the figure inside looked like her brother frozen in a scream made her a little uncomfortable). “We could convince him to change into me, and he could go home with Janice. I’m pretty sure I’m the one she wants more, since she’s always making me into her personal Barbie doll.”

Dipper frowned disapprovingly. “The shapeshifter’s a homicidal psychopath, Mabel. As tempting as it is to sic him on Janice...he’d get loose and go after Grunkle Ford or something. We can’t risk it.”

Mabel giggled. “Can you imagine if she tried to make him wear that pink dress?”

The frown was replaced by a guffaw. “Oh  _ man _ , he’d probably rip it to shreds before turning into a giant centipede or something!”

For a moment they just sat and laughed at the mental image of their great aunt getting her comeuppance from the shapeshifter.

Eventually, though, Mabel let out a small sigh and leaned her chin into her hand, using the other to scratch Waddles’s ears.

“She’s kind of like a fussier version of Mom, sometimes.”

Dipper nodded. “Yeah, like she was the time they hosted that cocktail party.”

Their mother had acted an awful lot like Janice for the two days she spent preparing for the party and even more on the day of, worrying obsessively over whether or not everything was perfect and telling her children multiple times that she needed them to be on their best behavior and getting very sharp over any incidents that might possibly create a bad impression on the important guests who would be attending. After it was all over, though, she’d apologized to everyone for being so difficult to deal with this whole time, and the four of them had a cheesy movie night on the couch with popcorn and sodas.

The children smiled a little over the memory, leaning against each other and munching on Slim Jims (most of the food Wendy brought them consisted of things like that: canned meat, fruit snacks, chips, the occasional apples or oranges-anything that could be easily smuggled in a backpack).

They were sitting in the middle of the biggest room, which had been set up to kind of look like a sleepover. Wendy had brought them two spare sleeping bags, which were spread out along with several of Mabel’s homemade blankets, allowing them to hold each other if there were nightmares one or both of them needed comforting from. Their food and water were kept in one of the broken cryotanks, and thankfully there was a bathroom and a decontamination shower down here so they could stay relatively clean and sanitary. Mabel had brought paper and crayons and tape, and she’d used them to decorate the walls with brightly colored pictures of whatever popped into her head, in the hopes of giving the place a more homey touch. Several of them were pictures of all four of them together again, in the Shack where they belonged.

A corner of the lab area was Dipper’s personal space where he was working on “Operation: Rescue Grunkles”; it was unfortunately not as easy to figure out as he’d thought it would be, since he had no idea what the layout of the prison where they were being held was like, and Wendy had been unable to get the blueprints off the Internet (in retrospect, that wasn’t something they’d be likely to put where anyone could find it). The problem was only exacerbated by the fact that Wendy had seen a group of people she was pretty sure were private investigators poking around the Mystery Shack two days ago, so she’d brought the kids a week’s worth of food and told them that she’d have to steer clear of the bunker until they left.

As time went on, they became more restless and worried. What if the investigators found them? What if something had happened to Wendy, like she’d broken her leg or something and couldn’t come to them? What if there had been a nuclear explosion and they were the only humans and pig left alive (this was fortunately a less common worry)? So they worked as best they could to comfort and distract each other with stories, memories, games and jokes.

“You think she would’ve eventually loosened up a little?” Mabel asked at last, feeding pieces of her Slim Jim to Waddles.

“Maybe,” Dipper admitted. “But I dunno how long we’d have had to wait for that, and besides, Stan and Ford would still be in prison.”

Mabel’s lip trembled a little at the reminder, and she blinked hard a few times.

“I hope they’re both doing okay.”

Dipper sighed. “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor little munchkins. It's not easy being a fugitive at any age.


	5. Of rich inventors and poor lumberjills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's been a while since I added to this; I got bitten by a different rabid plot bunny, and it basically took over most of my writing recently, as some of my more avid fans might have noticed.  
> But I'm back now. For at least a little while.

Stan marched with purpose through the streets, trying to think like the kids.

_ Dipper’s gotta be freaking out, poor little nerd. This whole escape was probably his idea, too, and he’ll have made some kinda complicated plan to enact it, so wherever they are, they’re hidden  _ really _ well. He’d want to get as few people involved as possible, and only someone they trust without question. _

_...That leaves one other person besides Soos. _

He pulled out his cell phone (the kids had persuaded him and Ford to get them using some of the money left over from rebuilding the Shack), and opened the texting app, connected to his brother’s message thingy, whatever he was supposed to call it.

**_Rty-_ **

With an annoyed growl he backspaced. Stupid flimsy buttons.

**_Try Wendy_ **

As he hit send, his old ears tuned back in to the clicking of impractical high-heeled boots chasing down the sidewalk after him and Soos.

“Stanley-slow down this instant-eek!”

There was a frightened squeal, a loud crash, and a thump.

Stan turned around in time to see Janice picking herself up off the sidewalk in an area that obviously hadn’t been salted yet, with an overturned trash can rolling back and forth next to her. She looked with dismay at her now-crumpled in on one side umbrella, before glaring at Stan.

“No, don’t help me get up or anything.”

Stan folded his arms. “Okay, I won’t.”

Soos stepped in, just as she looked like she was about to shoot a barbed comment back at him, and offered her his meaty arm with a smile. She hesitated, then accepted it.

Stan’s former handyman was way too nice sometimes.

Once she was on her feet, she brushed herself off as best she could, and began ineffectively trying to straighten out her umbrella.

“Where do you presume to look for the kids next?”

Stan’s gaze flicked towards the hill that was in the highest part of town, and the enormous house on top of it. His money was still on Wendy, but just in case they ought to consider all their options...

“Let’s try McGucket’s. It’s big enough that if they wanted, they could be in there and he wouldn’t even know it.”

Janice raised an eyebrow. “McGucket?”

...And then Stan got a wonderful, awful idea.

“You mean you haven’t heard of Fiddleford McGucket?” His eyes widened in mock surprise. “He’s probably the richest guy in town! He’s created some crazy inventions that he sold to the government, and he lives in that mansion up on the hill!”

Janice’s eyes turned towards the mansion...and her pupils dilated greedily at the signs of evident wealth. Stan was equal parts disgusted and gleeful that this was going just how he’d planned.

“...Tell me more about this Mr. McGucket,” Janice said; she gave up trying to straighten her umbrella, and closed it with an audible cracking noise.

Stan began striding towards the mansion, with the others in tow; he enjoyed the way the braces Ford had given his legs were helping him keep his own balance better. “Oh, he’s a lonely old man-not so much now that he’s got his son livin’ with him, but he’s always glad ta have visitors.”

“Oh. So there’s a Mrs. McGucket.” Her lips puckered in disappointment.

“Nah, not anymore. They split up ages ago.”

Soos frowned. “But what about the rac-oof!”

Stan moved his elbow out of Soos’s ribs. “He’s a little weird, but a great guy.”

“Rich people aren’t weird, Stanley,” Janice admonished, “they’re eccentric.”

Inside, Stan grinned evilly.

Unlike the way they had been for the last hundred years, the former Northwest gates were always left wide open. The walk to the house was also more...interesting to look at than before. Instead of peacocks there were robots sweeping snow off the concrete and putting down a layer of salt; instead of stuck-up topiaries there were a series of Tesla coils passing blue electricity back and forth; and the front door had two large security cameras on either side, with a knocker that looked like a golden possum’s head with a ring in its mouth.

Stan hoped it wasn’t an  _ actual _ possum’s head that had been gold-plated or something, as he lifted the knocker and rapped at the door.

He glanced over his shoulder, and saw Janice taking a moment to touch up her makeup and smooth her hair. Soos looked a bit confused by this, but then he shrugged and started cleaning snow off his cap.

Tate opened the door; when he saw Stan there, for a moment his eyes actually showed from under his hat, they widened that much.

“M-Mr. Pines?”

“Yup. Mind if we talk ta your dad?”

He gave them a slightly suspicious look, but then nodded and shrugged a little. “He’s down in his lab; I’ll go get him. Make yourselves comfortable.”

As they waited, Janice was practically drooling over the evident luxury of the house, though she looked a little confused at some of the obvious McGucket touches: the fountain in the middle of the room was filled with sarsaparilla instead of the cider the Northwests always put in it, and the fancy table was strewn with blueprints and sculptures made out of pieces of machinery, for example.

Stan ignored her, and searched for evidence of the kids.

Of course, it wouldn’t be anything obvious...but his eyes settled on any shiny surface, thinking/hoping that it could be a fleck of glitter (the equivalent of a neon sign saying “MABEL WAS HERE”).

His search of the main hall was fruitless, though-and then he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

Janice heard them too, and turned towards them with a bright smile planted on her face.

Tate came in, with his dad behind him.

...There was a small amount of improvement from how he’d looked when he’d been living in the dump. For one thing, he’d started washing on a regular basis again, and there was a long blue shirt on under the overalls (which were currently smoking in a few places and splattered with fresh grease stains). And his bandages were gone, and his feet encased in a pair of fluffy blue slippers that rivaled Stan’s. But he was still the bow-legged, hunched-over, long-bearded, spindly little guy wearing the big green glasses that Stan fondly remembered.

When he saw them, he grinned in delight and galloped over.

“Weel, I’ll be hornswoggled! Stanley Pines, I din’t think I’d never see your face again in this lifetime!” To Stan’s surprise, he actually received a hug around the waist from the hillbilly. Then he pulled back, looking alarmed. “Where’s Stanferd? Ya din’t leave him, didja?”

“No, of course not!” Stan couldn’t help feeling indignant that he would ever consider that an option. “He’s probably at the Corduroys.”

“Eh?”

“We’re looking for the kids. They came back to town, and we’re tryna find ‘em.” Then Stan remembered his companions, and turned-and got a good look at Janice’s face.

The last time he’d seen someone with a frozen, fixed grin like that, it had been on a skeleton. It warmed Stan’s heart, seeing the transfixed horror in her eyes as she stared at Fiddleford, who gave her a confused look back, probably wondering who the heck she was and what she was doing here.

“Janice, meet Fiddleford McGucket, the town’s other resident genius besides Ford.”

Fiddleford blushed, and his shoulders hunched even more. “Oh, hush, I ain’t-” Then his head snapped up, and his eyes narrowed. “Wait jes’ a darn minute. Is this the woman that’s been fightin’ you two for custody o’ the kids?”

Janice finally defrosted, and she drew herself up straight. “I-it was hardly a fight. The courts decided that, based on the  _ numerous _ criminal offenses these two have committed-”

Her words were not just cut short; they were utterly eviscerated by the old man storming towards her, one skinny little hand raised and trembling with rage.

“You oughta be  _ ashamed _ o’ yerself! Splittin’ up a family like that, after ever’thin’ they went through-iffen you were a kid o’mine, never mind you’re a lady I’d tan yer hide fer ya-!”

“Dad!” Tate said warningly, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him back. “That’s enough.”

“She needs ta hear it! Lemme go!”

_ Huh. Never knew he was that much of a spitfire under all the craziness. _

Stan felt a newfound respect for the hillbilly starting to develop. Even so, he cleared his throat loudly, yanking everyone’s attention back to him.

“Is there any chance they could be here? Maybe hiding in a part of the house where you don’t go often?”

McGucket took a few deep breaths, visibly trying to calm himself, and after shooting one last glare at Janice he turned back to Stan.

“Well, mebbe. There’s plenny of rooms around here I still haven’t looked in. And they could’ve snuck past my security measures somehow...”

“Mind if we look for ‘em?”

“Course not! And we’ll help, right Tate?”

His son gave a stoic nod.

If Stan didn’t know better, he’d say Janice looked kind of troubled as they split up to search the house...

* * *

To Ford’s annoyance, the Corduroy’s house was empty when he knocked, and Dan’s truck was missing. But he had a feeling Stan’s hunch was correct: there was no sign of Waddles.

When the children were forced to go with Janice, Wendy had promised to look after the pig for Mabel, and not allow her father and brothers to eat him. But the scanner he’d modified showed a distinct lack of porcine life form.

_ So the kids are definitely in the area; one of the first things Mabel would want is her pig. _

_ But they’re not here, so where…? _

His ears suddenly picked up the crunching of boots on snow coming from the trees.

Ford shoved the scanner back into his pocket, and ducked around the side of the cabin-just in time to see a tall, redheaded girl come stepping into the main clearing, an empty backpack sagging against her back and eyes heavy with worry.

_ Got you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, Bethanne, for giving me the wonderful, wonderful idea about McGucket.
> 
> I figure Tate's seen so many things around here that nothing surprises him much anymore; even seeing his dad's friend who's been arrested and sent to prison for life unexpectedly on his doorstep.


	6. One Hour Earlier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's funny how deciding to sit down and get some homework done automatically makes ideas for what to write next spring to mind. It's like it's some kind of weird Pavlovian response thingy.  
> Hopefully this sounds as good as it did in my head; I had to fine-tune it a little before I was satisfied with it. And then get back to work on my homework (bleagh).

By the time Wendy came back, Dipper had been dead for almost three days.

* * *

**No, no, I’m totally kidding.**

**Sorry, that was mean. I just wanted to imagine the looks on your faces, since I can’t see them in person.**

* * *

He was looking pretty starved, though, even worse than Mabel. Who, by the way, had barely realized that the reason for this was because he’d been secretly giving his food rations to her when she wasn’t looking.

They’d divided everything into two equal piles to avoid fighting over who got what, and hoped it would be enough to last them until Wendy was able to bring more food. But she’d been gone a lot longer than they expected, and both their stomachs were growling and their limbs shaking all the time now from how little nourishment they were receiving. Almost all the bagged food was gone, and they were down to two and a half cans of brown meat, having rationed things as best they could. Despite this, every time Mabel had thought she was out of fruit snacks or pretzels, she’d look in her pile and find an extra bag of what she wanted buried in the mess; she’d taken it for granted that it was just one she’d overlooked, and happily dug in, sharing the contents with her pig.

The truth was incredibly obvious in hindsight, and she was ashamed of herself for not realizing it sooner-not until she’d returned to the main part of the tunnel, after taking Waddles for a walk in one of the branched-off areas, and caught Dipper slipping his last bag of trail mix into her pile.

“No wonder you look crummier than I do!” she gasped, storming towards him and snatching the bag accusingly. “Dipper, are you nuts?! Have you been sneaking your food to me this whole time?!”

He yelped, and recoiled, landing hard on his rear. When she folded her arms and glared down at him, waiting for an explanation, he pushed himself up as best he could, staring at his knees guiltily.

“You-you’ve been feeding both you and Waddles,” he whispered. “I figured you needed it more.”

The simple sentence felt like a punch in the gut.

Mabel let the bag of trail mix fall from her hand, and knelt until she was facing her brother. “Dipper…”

“What? I’ve still been eating.”

“But you’re also still starving yourself!” She felt inadvertent tears filling her eyes. “What are we supposed to do if you get too weak to use your big brain right and figure out our plan to rescue our grunkles, or if you-?”

Dipper shrugged. “Eh, I figured you and Waddles could just eat me, and that’d give you the brain power you’d need.”

“Gross, that’s not funny!” Despite herself, Mabel did smile a little-but not much. Then, with a glare of resolve, she grabbed up the trail mix, opened it, and shoved it into Dipper’s hands. “Eat.”

“I’m fine-”

“EAT.”

With a small sigh, Dipper scooped out a handful of mixed nuts, pretzels and raisins, slowly taking a bite of them.

“And if Wendy doesn’t come soon I’m going out to find food, Janice or no Janice,” Mabel decided firmly. “Because no brother of mine is gonna starve himself to death on my watch!”

He didn’t argue-even odds as to whether he was agreeing with her, or was simply too weak and hungry to bring up all the reasons why that was a stupid, reckless idea.

No sooner had he finished, however (he ate the entire bag, at Mabel’s insistence), when they heard the sound of booted feet in the passageway outside-and then Wendy came bursting in, wearing a full backpack, and a frantic expression that turned to one of gasping relief when she saw them (with some concern over how skinny they'd become).

“Guys!” She hurried forward and knelt, pulling both kids into her arms at once.

A part of Mabel wanted to be angry and demand to know where she had been and why she’d left them for so long that her brother had begun starving himself to keep her and Waddles alive-but it was effectively squelched when she felt a damp patch growing across her sweater, so instead she just hugged their friend back.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Wendy whispered at last, sounding far more frantic and upset than they’d ever heard her. “Those guys were  _ everywhere _ , and they kept searching the woods every night, with search lights and everything, so there wasn’t a good time for me to get here. I finally had to just skip school today.”

“Thanks, Wendy,” Dipper croaked, sounding like he wanted to be shocked at her for doing that but couldn’t muster up the energy.

* * *

She’d brought more food, both canned and fresh, and even a pack of gum-which technically Mabel wasn’t supposed to have on account of her braces, but she’d never let that stop her before, and she needed the comfort of something sugary right now, so as soon as she could she shoved a piece into her mouth and started chewing vigorously.

Once they’d all eaten and were feeling a little better, Wendy sat against the side of a cryotank, with the kids leaning on either side of her, and said, “I got some news.”

They looked up at her.

“It’s good and bad.”

“Tell us the good news first!” Mabel demanded.

“Unless the bad news is more important!” Dipper cut in quickly.

Mabel grumbled a little, but conceded the point.

Wendy bit her lip. “I wouldn't say it's more _important_...but the bad news is, your great aunt’s in town looking for you herself.”

Mabel’s stomach clenched, and for a moment she thought that the pears and canned chicken she’d just eaten were about to come right up again.

“Hey, it’s okay, she doesn’t know where you are, I’m sure of it.” Wendy squeezed her shoulders until she was able to take a few deep breaths. “And it brings me to the good news, which is that she didn’t come alone.”

“Uh, Wendy, I think you need to reexamine your definition of what good news-” Suddenly Dipper’s voice trailed off, and his eyes widened. “Wait. You don’t mean-”

“Yup.” Wendy smiled. “Guess who she busted out of prison to help her look for you?”

* * *

Far above the bunker, sitting on the nearby trees close to the entrance, several flocks of birds were scared away by a high-pitched, excited squeal.

* * *

“DIPPER THIS IS GREAT OUR GRUNKLES ARE FREE AND THEY’RE GONNA COME FIND US AND WE CAN ALL GO HOOOOME!!!!!!” Mabel screamed, leaping to her feet and doing an excited dance with Waddles gathered into her arms. Just hearing the news that Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford were out of prison was enough to restore all the energy that she’d been drained of for these past few weeks. “Wendy, do you have your phone? Let’s call them and let them know where we are! Wait, which one should we call? Grunkle Stan’s probably more worried about us, but Ford’ll be less likely to yell into the phone-”

She had just lunged at Wendy, ready to wrest the phone from her if necessary, when Dipper grabbed her arm. “Mabel, wait a second! We’re not calling anybody!”

Mabel’s jubilation changed in a second to bewilderment.

“What the hey, Dipper? They’ve gotta be worried sick about us, we gotta let them know we’re okay!”

Dipper frowned and shook his head. “Weren’t you paying attention? They’re here because Janice bailed them out to help look for us-”

“And they’re  _ obviously _ not gonna help her!” Mabel cut in, feeling her anger growing by the second. “Come on, you should know better by now! They’ve probably got a plan to run away with us as soon as they find us, and we can all sail away on a boat or something!”

...Okay, even she realized that was kind of unrealistic. But still, she  _ knew _ her grunkles well enough to know that they weren’t going to just hand them back over to Janice-not after they’d been so miserable with her that they ran away. Not when they clearly needed each other-

“She’s still legally our guardian according to the law, Mabel.” Dipper didn’t look any happier about it than she was, but his tone was resolute. “And besides, she’s probably sticking to them like glue-we can’t risk contacting them when there’s a chance she’ll be right there to listen in.”

It was logical, and Mabel knew it-but it was also so  _ unfair _ . Because the two old men she loved most in the world were  _ right there _ , in Gravity Falls where they were meant to be, and she wasn’t being allowed to go see them or even  _ call _ them-

With an unhappy wail, she snatched up her pig and rushed off towards one of the tunnels, ignoring when she heard her brother call after her.

* * *

Dipper’s shoulders slumped, and he shoved his hands into his pockets with an unhappy sigh.

After a moment he felt Wendy’s warm hand on his shoulder. “Hey, I feel you, man. Tell you what-if I can figure out a way to tell them without letting your great aunt find out too, I’ll do it. Okay?”

He brightened, and smiled at her. “Yeah, that’s perfect. Thanks, Wendy.”

“No problem.” With that she got up, and hurried out of the bunker.

  
Dipper picked up the food she’d brought them, and put it away in the broken tank for now.  He felt torn about whether to go find Mabel, because on the one hand the last time he’d left her alone when she was upset she’d accidentally started the apocalypse; on the other hand, he didn’t think his presence would be welcome at the moment, since he was kind of the cause of her current misery. In the end he compromised by going and finding the tunnel she was hiding in (by following the sound of the crying), and sitting down outside it, so he could be there for her if she needed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize some of you might still be mad at me for my little joke at the beginning.  
> Sorry, again.


	7. Stanford "Jack Bauer" Pines

When McGucket decided to search his house for someone, he really pulled out all the stops.

He brought out a special heat scanner he’d invented himself, and used it to search the mansion floor by floor, muttering equations under his breath and marking the places they’d already checked with a piece of chalk. The others would check the same areas too, just in case the kids weren’t showing up or something. After an hour they’d found rooms housing possums, raccoons, a flock of chickens, and even a few gnomes, but so far no kids.

To Stan’s surprise, Janice made no cutting remarks about all these animals McGucket was living with-which felt a little hypocritical, considering how much she’d freaked out about Mabel having a pig.

But on the whole, she didn’t seem inclined towards either her typical snobby behavior or admiring the places that were still evidence of the Northwests’ wealth; she was actually kind of lost in thought, only speaking if someone addressed her directly.

_Guess even she can’t be a totally disagreeable old witch all the time._

* * *

When she reached her house, Wendy began stamping the snow from her boots as she dug into her coat pocket for her keys. She hoped her dad wasn’t home yet; that would mean having to answer some very awkward questions about why she wasn’t at school, and didn’t she have a calculus test this week, and she really didn’t have time for this she had to figure out how to find-

A hand grabbed her shoulder, spinning her and shoving her against the door in one fluid motion. She was seconds away from breaking the arm of whoever the heck was attacking her and making a run for it-but then she got a good look at his face.

“Dr. Pines?!” The rush of adrenaline was quickly replaced by relief that actually made her a little weak in the knees; he was here, and appeared to not have the kids’ aunt breathing down his neck so she could-

“Where are the kids?!” Dr. Pines demanded in a low, menacing growl, looming over her.

Wendy was taken aback by the ferocity in his voice; it took her longer to answer than it should have.

“Dude-”

“Are they hiding in the bunker? Tell me now!” His thumb was pressing so hard into her shoulder it felt like it was gonna leave a bruise.

At that point she decided enough was enough. “Cut it out, dude!” She smacked his arm away. “Yeah, they’re in the bunker, I was just about to go looking for you guys so I could let you know! Sheesh!”

The glare faded, replaced by embarrassment. “Oh.”

Wendy rubbed her shoulder and gave him a reproachful look. “You’re lucky no one was around to see that and call the cops.”

Dr. Pines stepped back, actually blushing a little. “...Sorry.” Then, very abruptly, he whirled around and sprinted off into the trees.

Wendy decided to go see if she could track down Stan.

* * *

Ford raced to the tree that stood over the bunker he and Fiddleford had created; now that he was close to his goal, a single-minded determination not unlike the one he’d felt while traveling the multiverse had possessed him.

He was going to find his children _today_ , come hell or high water.

When he found the right tree, Ford scanned the area until he found a decent-sized rock, having to dig through the snow a little to get it but barely noticing the cold, and hurled it up at the right branch.

Then, once the stairwell formed, he hurried down into the fallout shelter, taking note of the trail of footprints on the dusty floor indicating that Wendy had been here on a semi-regular basis-and, just barely, he could make out the traces of two smaller shoe sizes and some hoof tracks.

But he didn’t allow himself to get excited yet. He wouldn’t get his hopes up until he actually found them.

The tunnel was a bit cramped for someone his size, but Ford resolutely crawled through it anyway. As he got closer to the other end, he began to hear a soft, rhythmic noise...like footsteps, moving back and forth.

Like someone pacing.

Ford crawled faster, and pushed the door open-and there was Dipper.

Skinny, baggy-eyed, wearing what looked like three layers of clothes and with his trademark hat missing, but alive.

He jumped, and stumbled back with a squeak of fright when the door to the crawlspace flew open-just in time for his foot to land on the tile that triggered the booby trap.

Before Ford had time to do more than call out the boy’s name, the door had slammed shut, and he could hear the klaxon start to blare announcing that the trap had been set off, while everything around him started rumbling.

And then came the sound of Dipper’s panicked yelling.

* * *

_I KNEW I should’ve brought my journal with me!_

Frantically Dipper wracked his brains, trying to remember which symbols were the ones he needed to push to create the escape route, as he ran over to the other side of the room and pounded on the door.

“MABEL!”

A second later he heard his sister’s voice on the other side.

“Dipper! What is it! What’s happening?!”

“The walls-Grunkle Ford-I need you to go get my journal and turn to the back, I wrote down the symbols I need to get out of here, hurry!”

Then he had to step back, as a block rose up under his feet.

Was-was it the snowflake one, or the one that looked like a circle with a dot in the middle, or-

No no _no_ , this wasn’t supposed to happen, he wasn’t supposed to get crushed to death before they had a chance to-

There were two loud zapping noises, and then the far door fell off the wall, with its hinges completely burned off.

Ford burst through, carrying what looked like a gun made out of kitchen appliances. In three long strides he was at Dipper’s side, snatching him up into his arms and then racing towards the door into the lab area, leaving the boy too breathless for words.

Every time a block came into their path, he either incinerated it or leaped over it. And when he reached the door, he shot its hinges off too.

When it didn’t fall, he let out an annoyed snarl that sounded like it had a bit of a curse mixed in, and then spun a dial on the side of his gun.

“Close your eyes!” he ordered Dipper, who immediately did so.

“MABEL, IF YOU’RE IN FRONT OF THE DOOR, MOVE!”

A second later, there was a horrific roaring sound, a screech of tearing metal, and then they were flying forward and landing in a heap on the floor as the noises of the trap behind them came to a halt.

For a moment they just lay there, panting and gasping. Then Ford said softly, “You can open your eyes now, Dipper.”

He did so hesitantly, and looked around to make sure Mabel-

There she was, looking a little winded and shocked and with her face and sweater covered in ash, but unharmed. One of her hands was clutching his journal, which was on fire at one corner. She finally noticed this, and with a panicked cry threw it to the ground and stomped on it; Dipper couldn’t even be upset about the potential damage.

At last he turned his head, and asked in soft disbelief, “...Grunkle Ford?”

Ford sat them both up, cupping his face in one hand and beaming at him. “Hey.”

He looked over at Mabel, training his smile on her now-and before he could speak she’d already cannoned into him, knocking all three of them to the floor again.

“GRUNKLE FOOOOORD, WE’VE MISSED YOU SO MUCH, THAT WAS SUCH AWESOME TIMING I LOVE YOU PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DON’T EVER LEAVE US AGAIN-”

Her yelling went on for another minute, until she finally had to stop because she was lightheaded. Waddles, who had also been fortunately out of the way of the blast, came squealing over to join in the dogpile (did that make it a pig-pile?), nuzzling and licking Ford’s face like he was Stan.

Needless to say, it was quite some time before they all calmed down. Ford, uncaring about the fact that they were just a spring and summer away from being fourteen, pulled both kids into his lap and hugged them close, as they told him everything that had happened since they’d last seen him and Stan.

Speaking of which…

“Where’s Grunkle Stan?!” Mabel demanded at last, “I have weeks of not hugging him that I need to make up for!”

Ford laughed. “He’s out looking for you with Janice-no doubt they’re making each other miserable.”

Dipper’s smile faded. “...What’re we gonna do? If she finds us she’ll just take us back-we _can’t_ go with her, Grunkle Ford! We just can’t!”

The old man sighed, leaning his chin into Dipper’s hair as he picked up some of the boy’s sober mood. “...How about I go find Stanley and bring him here, and we can talk about it together, as a family.”

“How’re you gonna get him away from Janice?” Mabel asked.

An evil grin touched Ford’s lips. “Leave that to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? I'm not completely evil.  
> Even when I give you all collective heart attacks by putting the characters in a near-death experience, I balance it off with a nice fluffy moment afterwards.  
> Of course, I'm probably gonna torture them again very soon-  
> I mean, what? Nothing!


	8. Soeur Janice, Soeur Janice/dormez-vous, dormez-vous?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Easter, everybody. Have a chapter.

The last place that needed to be checked was the basement; Janice finally grimaced with her usual distaste when she saw the mess of machinery strewn everywhere, in several places dripping with oil and other fluids, but she didn’t complain.

In the middle of the mess lay what looked like the beginnings of a giant praying mantis, complete with long front legs and mandibles.

“What kinda robot ya buildin’ now, McGucket?” Stan asked out of curiosity; he’d thought this little habit was over and done with, now that he was no longer trapped in the dump trying to wring the occasional drop of attention out of his son.

The inventor’s shoulders hunched up even more than usual. “Heh, actually...I’m gonna take this’un apart cuz it ain’t needed no more. Or reconfigger mah blueprints a might, turn it inta somethin’ else.”

Stan gave him a confused frown. “That’s not incredibly vague at all.”

“Well…” McGucket’s feet shuffled, and he looked uncomfortably over at Janice. “It, uh, it ain’t important. Le’s jes’ keep lookin’ fer the kids.”

McGucket hurried on ahead with his device, Janice trailing after him. Stan and Soos both looked over at Tate in confusion.

“He was gonna make a robot that’d break you and your brother outta prison,” he said, tone completely deadpan.

“Whoa. Really?”

“Yup.” He strode after his father, absentmindedly catching a crescent wrench that was about to fall off a table and hanging it back on the wall.

Up ahead, there was a loud, gleeful cackle that obviously came from McGucket; Stan decided he’d better hurry up and make sure Janice wasn’t getting tortured _too_ much.

* * *

To his surprise, when he caught up with them (moving like a young man again thanks to these leg braces), he found her staring up at an enormous, dinosaur-like robot looming in a corner in astonishment. He remembered faintly seeing it chasing the kids that one day at the lake.

“You built this?” Janice asked, staring at it in disbelief.

“Yup! Gave it a biomechanical brainwave generator an’ ever’thing!” McGucket said proudly, patting the Gobblewonker’s side like it was a new car.

“...You must have been the champion of your shop classes in school.”

“Well, kinda. I kept gettin’ in trouble fer addin’ stuff on, like the occasional flamethrower. I didn’ unnerstand the problem; seemed ta me I was improvin’ on the original designs.”

And then Stan realized that the world must be about to come to an end or something, because Janice actually laughed.

It didn’t last long, and she seemed pretty surprised when she heard herself...but it was still a moment of genuine humor, pointed at _McGucket_ , of all people.

_It’s gotta be the fumes down here making her feel funny or something._

Stan’s phone was shaking, he suddenly realized.

He pulled it out of his coat pocket, and glanced down out of the corner of his eye; it was a text from Wendy.

He checked-Janice and McGucket had gone back to searching, Soos had peered into a large stovepipe (presumably to see if the kids were inside) and gotten his head stuck, and Tate was helping him get free. Stan turned away, and opened the text.

_Where r u?_

Quickly, trying not to fumble this time, Stan typed back, _McG’s_.

A few seconds later (he was still amazed at how fast kids were able to text), she replied, _Kids r safe. Frd found them._

Stan went limp with relief.

He was just about to ask where they were, when Janice’s voice demand waspishly, “Stanley? What is that?”

Quickly Stan blanked the screen, and held it up. “It’s my phone.”

Janice’s eyes narrowed. “You know perfectly well what I mean. Who were you talking to?”

“One of my former employees. She was askin’ if it was true about our bein’ out of prison, and if that means she can get her job back.”

Janice glared at Stan suspiciously; he glared back as he shoved the phone into his pocket again...until she stepped closer, getting right up in his face.

“If you and your brother are trying to abscond-” ha, he was right, she _was_ the kind of person who’d use that kinda word- “with the children, I swear, you will _never_ be safe again. They are all I have left of their mother, and I will be d_mned if I’m going to lose them. I will hunt you down no matter where you go, or what-”

Neither of them noticed that someone had descended the stairs and stepped up close to them, until Ford was already shoving Janice back and then spraying her in the face with a canister of some kind.

For a moment Janice swayed, blinking stupidly and looking confused; then her eyes slowly shut, and she collapsed forward onto Ford’s shoulder, snoring almost as bad as Stan did.

Ford shook the canister with a grin.

“Anesthetic spray. Created it myself.”

“Nice job.” Stan held out his fist; Ford tapped it.

Soos let out an awestruck noise. “Whoa, Other Mister Pines, that was some mega cool timing! She was trying to be all threatening to Mister Pines, and then you came right up and-” he mimicked a spraying sound while holding up his hand- “ _pssshhh_ , and put her right out! It was a total photo-worthy moment! Oh, wait, wait-” he pulled out his phone- “do you mind holding her up and doing a repeat performance so I can make it an _actual_ photo moment?”

Ford half-dragged Janice over, depositing her in Soos’s arms. “We don’t have time. We need you to watch over her for a few hours-make sure she keeps breathing normally and so on, I haven’t had the chance to test the strength of the anesthetic before using it.”

“Does that mean you found the kids?” Soos asked, eyes widening with worry. “Are they okay? Did they haveta eat Waddles ta stay alive, like the Donner Party?”

“No, the pig is fine.” Ford gave McGucket a sheepish glance. “However, I owe you a new booby trap. My apologies.”

McGucket’s eyes widened behind his goggles. “Ya mean they were down _there_ th’whole time?”

“Indeed. Come on, Stanley. We need to have a family meeting.”

Stan was already halfway up the stairs.

“What’re ya still standin’ around for, knucklehead?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...That probably counts as assault or kidnapping or something, but I won't tell if you guys won't.


	9. The family that schemes together, stays together?

It wasn’t until Ford left that it finally sank into Dipper’s head that without his grunkle coming to his rescue, he probably would have been crushed to death.

He curled up in three different blankets, shaking, pupils filling most of his eye and feeling like he was seconds away from losing consciousness. Within moments Mabel was by his side and wrapping her arms around him as tight as she could, while Waddles sat on both their laps, offering tiny reassuring grunts, until his breathing calmed at last.

“...You’d think I’d be used to having near-death experiences by now,” Dipper murmured, wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand.

Mabel snorted. “Just because it’s happened before doesn’t make it less scary when it happens again.”

He still was glad that neither of their grunkles were there to see him like this. He knew they probably wouldn’t think less of him for it, but still. He wanted to retain at least some kind of dignity in their presence.

“How long do you think it’ll be before they come back?” Mabel asked at last.

Dipper shrugged. “Depends on how quickly they manage to ditch Janice.” His stomach clenched uncomfortably with a sudden thought. “You don’t think they’d...do anything- _ illegal _ to her, do you?”

Mabel frowned. “You don’t mean like-” Her eyes widened, and she tried to laugh it off. “C’mon, bro-bro, you know them! Just because they’re really mad at her for ruining all our lives by sending them to prison so she could keep us and not let us do anything we wanted to ever again doesn’t mean…” Her voice trailed off. “Oh.”

She began scratching Waddles’s head; he visibly revelled in the attention. “...No, it’s not-I’m sure Graunty Janice is fine.”

Neither of them was completely convinced.

For a while Dipper’s nerves and suppressed excitement kept him sitting up, awake and alert to every sound and wondering if their uncles were finally back-or if somehow Janice had discovered their location and would be arriving any moment with police who were more intelligent than Blubs and Durland, ready to drag them screaming back to her house, or if any other number of worrying possibilities would occur.

Eventually, though, the adrenaline rush was more than his stressed out, exhausted body could handle, and his eyes slid shut, and his head dropped down onto Waddles’s back.

He was only startled awake by a loud voice bellowing, “KIDS!!” before he and Mabel were both hoisted off the ground in one fluid motion.

* * *

Stan just couldn’t help himself; the moment he saw his kids again, he hurried through the remains of the room that had once contained the booby trap built by McGucket, and pulled them both into his arms. This somewhat rudely dislodged Waddles, who let out an indignant squeal, but Stan figured he could apologize to the pig later; right now he was too busy holding the children he’d been missing for  _ way _ too long, and losing his balance and landing hard on the floor but not caring because that made it easier to settle both of them into his lap.

They were a little startled at first, but then they hugged him back just as tight, burying their faces in his jacket; he barely noticed when Ford joined him, trying to gather all of them into his arms at once to create the most embarrassing mushy moment ever.

After a minute he pushed the kids back-but only so he could cover their faces with kisses like his mother used to do with him and Ford.

“Ugh! Grunkle Stan, gross!” a blushing Dipper protested, (but not sounding too heated about it).

“Kid, I haven’t seen you in over a month, I’m gonna be as affectionate as I dang well please.” He added a few mushy kisses to the boy’s birthmark just for good measure until he squirmed away, laughing.

Once the reunited family calmed down, they sat together against a wall and tried to think about what they were going to do now.

“If we made another memory gun, maybe we could make Janice forget about wanting to take us and throw you in prison!” Mabel suggested.

Stan shook his head. “It wouldn’t work, pumpkin. There’s a lot of other people whose minds we’d haveta erase, and a lotta records we’d haveta find and destroy, and it’d take more time than we actually have.”

“Plus, in addition to erasing memories being  _ intrinsically wrong _ ,” added Ford, once again taking on the role of quasi-responsible parent, “I doubt we could manage it permanently, since it’s been proven that exposure to relevant images and people can bring them back.”

She snapped her fingers in disappointment. “Darn.”

“Good thinkin’ outside the box, though,” Stan reassured her.

“This would be so much easier to deal with in the multiverse,” Ford grumbled. “We could just go to the nearest wormhole and wind up in an entirely different galaxy, or another time, or both, and she wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to look for us.”

“That sounds surprisingly tempting right now,” Stan muttered.

Mabel brightened. “Maybe we should get a boat like you guys always dreamed about and just disappear into the ocean! Ooh, even better: make it a boat that can turn into a  _ submarine _ , so it can hide underwater! I bet Mr. McGucket could help us make it!”

It did sound awfully tempting...but Stan looked at Ford over the kids’ heads, and he knew they were both thinking that it wouldn’t be good for Dipper and Mabel to be separated from society and people their own age for the rest of their teenagehood, which was most likely how long they would have to hide away if they wanted Janice to not have any kind of control left over the kids.

“I think the only way for us to find a positive outcome to this situation,” said Ford slowly, “is for us to convince Janice that we’re not as bad of an influence on you as she thinks.”

Mabel let out another disappointed sigh, but acknowledged the wisdom in his words with a small nod.

Stan nodded too. “Maybe we can get an actual custody hearing this time, instead o’ just gettin’ packed off to prison.” He wished he had some wood to knock on; Janice had said she was getting the charges against them dropped, but he wouldn’t put anything past her at this juncture.

“If that happens, I’m sure tons of people in town will say you guys are good parents for us,” Dipper pointed out. “Since, you know, you literally  _ saved the entire world _ to keep us safe, and stuff.”

Stan felt an odd warmth coiling in his gut at the obvious pride in the boy’s words.

“Granted, it was all for the purposes of fixing a mistake I made-”

“Don’t ruin the moment, Sixer.”

The kids giggled.

Of course, if he understood the “Never Mind All That” Act correctly, they might not be able to directly mention the whole Weirdmageddon incident outright, not if they wanted to avoid getting tazed by those two dopes...but maybe people would be willing to say they’d kept the kids alive in other hazardous situations?

It was better than no plan at all, which was usually all Stan had to work with in tight spots like this.

He glanced at Ford. “Ya think it could work?”

Ford shrugged. “She’s been very unreasonable in the past, but perhaps if things came to a genuine custody battle she could be made to see-”

His words were cut off by Waddles letting out an almost enraged-sounding squeal.

The foursome looked up-and froze in horror.

  
Standing in the doorway was a very unamused-looking Janice, with Soos behind her, hunching apologetically.

“Sorry, Mr. Pines,” he said over her shoulder. “She threatened ta call the cops on you if I didn’t bring her here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I'm ending the chapter on another cliffhanger.  
> Because I am just that heartless.
> 
> ...But hey, at least things started happy, right?
> 
> By the way, it's my mom's birthday today. She doesn't read fanfiction to my knowledge, but happy birthday, Mom.


	10. A harpy gets her talons clipped

The kids’ reaction to seeing Janice was instantaneous.

Mabel and Dipper grabbed on to each other, while at the same time huddling further back against the two old men, as if she were about to lunge forward and try to drag them away kicking and screaming. Soos scooted around her, and ran over so he could glomp onto Stan’s free side; Stan seemed to understand that it was a gesture of solidarity, and didn’t push him away like he normally would have.

After a moment, Mabel reached out and pulled Waddles to her too, tucking him under her chin with a stubborn glare. She’d been forced to let go of her beloved pet once; he would have to be pried from her cold dead fingers before she would let it happen again. She  _ really _ wished she had her grappling hook with her, or that they could unfreeze the cryotank and sic the shapeshifter on Janice-

Janice spoke, in tones that were best described as, oh, let’s go with glacial. “Your magic anesthetic wore off, Stanford.”

“Obviously,” Ford muttered. “Wish I’d had more time to test it.”

“You know that was technically kidnapping.”

Mabel’s heart froze. She’d just gotten the rest of her family back; if she had to watch them be dragged off to prison again-well, just the thought of it made her a little lightheaded. Or maybe that was the fact that she’d been getting just the bare minimum of food for the past few weeks. More likely both.

But Janice didn’t say anything about sending them back to prison. Instead she knelt down to their level, and said in a softer tone, “Mason, Mabel, may I have a word with you?”

Dipper scowled. “We’re not going anywhere alone with you. Anything you wanna say to us, you can say in front of our grunkles.”

Mabel nodded in agreement, bolstered by her brother’s strength.

Janice looked a little annoyed again...but at last she nodded and sighed. To Mabel’s surprise, when she relaxed her frown lines it made her look a little younger.

“...If I bring the two of you back home with me, you’re just going to run away again, won’t you?” she finally asked.

“Every time,” Dipper said firmly.

Mabel nodded in agreement.

Janice’s eyebrows scrunched together, skeptically. “You really think living like  _ this _ -” she gestured around the bunker- “is preferable to staying with me?”

“YES!”

Mabel couldn’t help it; the word just exploded out of her all at once. And then more words kept coming, tired of being held back and swallowed down all the time she’d been living in their great aunt’s house.

“We keep  _ telling _ and  _ telling  _ you that, over and over, and you don’t LISTEN! We  _ love _ living with Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford, we don’t  _ care _ if the Mystery Shack isn’t fancy like your house and doesn’t have a pool and we don’t have as much money as you, it’s our  _ home _ !”

Vaguely Mabel realized that she was on her feet now, though still in the protective circle of her family, and that her hands were starting to hurt from how tightly she was clenching them into fists. Janice actually lost her balance and fell back on her rump, staring at Mabel in wide-eyed shock. But she wasn’t finished.

“You keep talking about how you want what’s best for us and how you think you’d be a better guardian, and then you take away everything that makes us happy! I can’t believe we’re actually  _ related  _ to you, because you are just  _ horrible _ !”

As she finally fell silent, the walls of the bunker echoed back at them,  _ “Horrible...horrible...horrible.” _

Mabel gulped; it was the first time in a long while that she’d let herself yell like that. She couldn’t help feeling that she...might have overdone it a little.

All her energy drained away at once, and she sat back down with a thud; immediately Dipper wrapped his arms around her again.

“...Wow,” Soos whispered, “that was pretty intense, hambone.”

Mabel looked up at Janice again-and to her shock, she saw actual tears in her great aunt’s eyes. She was keeping them from falling by what had to be sheer force of will, but they were still there.

Mabel had thought many times about telling Janice exactly what she thought of her, sure that it would be incredibly satisfying to get it through her thick skull that she was ruining all their lives. But now that she’d done it, and was seeing the consequences...it didn’t feel as good as she’d thought.

She was trying to figure out how she could even  _ begin _ to apologize, when Janice cleared her throat, and rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, before getting to her feet.

“Well then-” she had to clear her throat again- “I suppose you know them better than I do-and more importantly, you know yourselves better than I do.”

“Took you long enough,” Stan muttered, just soft enough for Mabel to hear. She elbowed him gently; there was no need to rub it in her face.

“I’ll arrange to have the rest of their things returned as soon as I can,” Janice said, looking at Ford now. “There will definitely be more paperwork for all of us to fill out, but if you can handle that-”

“Yes.”

“-then we shouldn’t have any more trouble.” Janice straightened her coat, and turned towards the doorway.

Slowly the rest of the little group got to their feet, and followed her out.

* * *

It gradually sunk into Dipper’s anxious mind during the walk out of the woods that Janice had given up.

She was allowing them to stay with their grunkles!

They were finally getting to go home!

Inside he was screaming his embarrassing high-pitched scream of excitement, but he forced himself to keep it in until they were at last alone.

Both kids had been willing to walk, but Stan and Ford had insisted on carrying them; from the way Ford’s hands kept trembling and tightening around him, Dipper had the feeling it was as much for their reassurance that they were back together as it was that he and Mabel were weak from lack of food. Soos carried Waddles, who munched contentedly on the collar of his shirt.

When they reached the house, Janice turned to face them, once again the picture of composure-except that her eyes were sad.

Dipper felt a little bit of sympathy towards her; the fact that she’d almost started crying after Mabel finished chewing her out had not been lost on him. But she had had Stan and Ford sent to prison for life, and taken them away from the Shack when both of them-especially Mabel-had already been in a very emotionally fragile state, and been so controlling and domineering...

Even if she was the last link to their mother’s family that he knew of, he kind of hoped he would never have to see her again.

“...Since they clearly want to be here, you might as well keep the kids while the custody situation is taken care of,” she said to Stan.

“You bet your life we will,” he growled, hugging Mabel.

For once, Janice didn’t have a snippy comeback. She just nodded, and turned towards her car, pulling her keys out of her purse.

Then, to everyone’s surprise, Mabel called out, “Graunty Janice?”

She waited until Janice looked over her shoulder at her, and said softly, “...I’m sorry we weren’t the kinda kids you wanted. And that I said-”

Again, Janice’s eyes became surprisingly big and shiny. “No, that-you weren’t-there was nothing wrong with either of you, sweetie. And-” She swallowed, looking like she wanted to say more...but at last she just climbed into her car, and drove away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But wait, there's more!
> 
> I feel like there needs to be at least an epilogue to this, so keep your shirts on, everyone.  
> ...No, seriously, please keep your shirts on, or at least don't tell me if you're going to-  
> And I'm making this weird. I'm just going to stop talking now.


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured I should probably at last finish this thing.  
> It's not my best work ever, but I hope it's somewhat satisfying as a conclusion.

For a few days the family did almost literally nothing but enjoy being back in each other’s presence.

Ford made some of the same mixture he’d given Stan and fed it to the kids, so at least they started getting their strength back relatively quickly, but Mabel still wanted to spend most of her time just curled up next to one of her grunkles, or sitting in their lap, or cuddling with them while they slept; meanwhile Dipper felt anxious if any of his family were out of his sight for too long (though he tried to be a little less openly clingy about it than Mabel).

In a way, it reminded them a lot of how things had been after Weirdmageddon: just that feeling of needing to know where everyone was, and that they were unhurt, as much as you could.

The next week they felt secure enough for Stan to open up the Mystery Shack again, and for the kids to get ready to go back to school; they had a lot of work to catch up on, and getting them re-signed up for Gravity Falls Junior High was a hellish process in itself, but at least it would take their mind off...quite a lot of things, hopefully.

* * *

As Janice had warned, there was more than a little paperwork and several legal matters that needed to be cleared up before they could finally make things official, but Stan came inside from getting the mail one afternoon, carrying two packages in his arms and quivering with excitement.

“Whatcha got there, Grunkle Stan?” Mabel asked with interest.

Stan immediately slid them behind his back. “Eh, probably nothing you’d be interested in, pumpkin.”

“Then why are you hiding them?” Her eyes narrowed.

“I’m not!” The fact that he was saying it while trying to suppress his own mischievous grin naturally only increased her suspicions.

“Grunkle  _ Stan _ …” She put her hands on her hips for a second-and then lunged at him.

Stan instantly raised the packages up over his head, using his free hand to fend her off. Mabel tried to climb him, and soon enough they were both teetering dangerously back and forth as they struggled.

“DIPPER! COME HELP ME FIND OUT WHAT GRUNKLE STAN’S HIDING!” Mabel yelled, the sentence ending in a squeal of laughter when Stan thrust his fingers under her chin and started tickling her neck.

Dipper stepped into the room from the kitchen, and stared at them in bewilderment.

“Dipper! Grab his other arm!” Mabel ordered through her giggling.

“Don’t even think about it, squirt!” Stan yelled-though he sounded more amused by the whole situation than anything else.

He was just trying to decide which of them he wanted to obey, when Ford stormed past him and snatched the packages himself in the most dramatic fashion possible.

“Hey, no fair!” Stan protested.

“I’m making sure you don’t fall and break a hip, Stanley,” Ford said in a tone of false concern.

“Watch it-I’m old, not decrepit! And as you love pointin’ out, you’re the older one, so you’re at  _ way  _ more risk of breakin’ a hip than me!”

Ford sat down on the sofa with the packages resting on his lap and an air of mock offense on his face. “I’ll have you know I keep myself in  _ peak _ physical condition! And either way, if these packages are what I think they are, the children deserve not to be kept in suspense about them.”

Seconds later Dipper and Mabel were perched on either side of him, and after a nod of approval they eagerly started ripping them open.

The one Mabel opened was indeed what they’d been expecting: two beautifully framed adoption certificates naming Stanley and Stanford Pines as the official guardians of Mason and Mabel Pines. She bounced in her seat in excitement, drumming her heels against the sofa as she lifted the frames into the air and then, on a whim, planting a long smooch onto each of them.

Stan laughed and ruffled her hair as he took them from her to hang over the fireplace. Then he looked over at Dipper, who was wearing a puzzled frown and pulling his box open to find something much less expected: a large green photo album.

“What’s this?”

Stan blinked. “...I thought that was gonna be the other one o’ these certificate thingies. I guess not.”

Dipper opened it slowly-and let out a small gasp.

Set inside, in plain sight, was one of the letters Mabel had written to their parents.

Mabel tugged on the side closest to her, and Ford quickly set it on his lap so they could all see it, while Stan came around and leaned on the couch above them.

Slowly the children turned the pages to reveal more letters. Not all of them were Mabel’s, they realized. After the last one she’d written there were a series of older ones, written in a clumsy child’s hand that were dictated to “Auntie Jay,” and signed, ‘your dress-up buddy,’ and then their mother’s name; they talked about her Halloween costume that year or about how she’d wanted to start collecting butterflies until she found out that would mean having to kill them. Many of them had drawings attached, or photos of their mother when she was a child, wearing brightly colored clothes and what seemed like fifty necklaces at once.

Dipper felt a lump rising in his throat.

* * *

As the pages changed, the letters did too.

The handwriting became neater, the delighted child who looked so much like Mabel grew into a shy-looking young woman with a warm smile who liked to wear flowers woven into her hair, who liked drawing and eventually discovered a deep and abiding love for traditional Chinese food. She rebuffed Janice’s apparent worries about her gaining weight in one letter, saying that she’d never wanted to have a Barbie-sized waistline anyway.

Then there was a letter about this nice guy she’d met in college and who she was pretty sure she was falling in love with; after that the album contained a wedding invitation, before the next page revealed a new photo.

It was a photo of Dipper and Mabel in the hospital as babies, nestled in their tired-but-happy-looking mother’s arms.

By now, of course, everyone’s eyes had gotten a little “glitter” in them, and Dipper had to wipe his on his sleeve before they turned the last few pages, revealing several photos of them as toddlers.

The last third of the album was blank, with a note attached:  _ That was my adventure with your mother. Feel free to fill the rest of this with whatever adventures you wish. _

There was no name on the return address to indicate who it was from, but it didn’t take a genius to figure it out.

“Huh. Guess she can be a graceful loser after all,” Stan said. “Either that, or this is her way of tryna bribe you two into choosin’ her instead.”

“Fat chance of  _ that _ ,” Dipper said with a snort.

But he had to admit, it helped a  _ little _ with lessening his anger towards his great-aunt. Not enough to want to see her again just yet-but a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-dah.  
> Hopefully this pleases Keleficent and marehami, the Adoption AU overlords who for some strange reason love to make terrible things happen to the Pines family, and to Mabel in particular.  
> Of course, some of you might point out that this is a situation of the pot calling the kettle black, considering most of my work, but have you READ their stuff? They give Mabel-  
> *Series of crashing noises as the attempted spoiler alert is violently subdued*  
> Never mind, just move along, folks, nothing to see here!


End file.
